Jim Knowles shares relationship with James Franklin, excitement to work with him

New defensive coordinator Jim Knowles has made his way to Happy Valley. Now, he’s excited to work alongside head coach James Franklin to get Penn State to the next level as a program.

In his introductory press conference, Knowles shared a bit about his relationship with Franklin. In particular, he also broke down what about Franklin an exciting head coach for him to work for as a defensive coordinator.

“We knew each other,” Jim Knowles said. “I had tremendous respect for what he’s accomplished here and throughout his career.”

Both James Franklin and Jim Knowles have been in coaching for plenty of time now. Still, despite both coaches coming from Pennsylvania, they’ve never been on the same staff. In recent seasons, the two have competed against one another, though, with Knowles running the defense at Ohio State.

For Jim Knowles, there was plenty of appeal to working with James Franklin. In particular, under him, Penn State has consistently had strong defenses, regardless of who the coordinator is, which comes from the culture within the program.

“I think coming from Coach Franklin, it wasn’t really a pitch, but it was something we could openly discuss is that he has built a culture here that has really emphasized defense. I think he’s been an offensive guy, so maybe some people look at him like that but when you look back at his history — he didn’t really have to say it, but we talked about it.”

Jim Knowles is the third defensive coordinator in as many seasons at Penn State. He’s taking over for Tom Allen who had the Nittany Lions elite on that side of the ball. In 2024, Penn State was eighth in scoring defense, giving up just 16.5 points per game. In terms of total defense, Penn State was seventh, giving up 294.8 yards per game. That’s excellent, but Knowles had Ohio State ranked first in both total defense and scoring defense.

“They’ve had really good defense here,” Knowles said. “They’ve been through some different coordinators, but they have always had a good defense. That goes into how you structure your practice plan, how you structure your offense, in terms of the tempo of the offense, or I’ve been around situations where the offense tried to score as fast as they could and didn’t worry about going three-and-out in 30 seconds and places that can put the defense at a disadvantage.

“He hasn’t structured it like that here. He has made it conducive to be successful on defense. You can talk about that, but the proof is in the numbers. Like I said, they’ve had some various coordinators here recently. And guess what? The defense has still been pretty good.”

Penn State clearly also really wanted to land Jim Knowles. His contract of over $3 million will make him the highest-paid coordinator in college football history.